54 pages • 1 hour read
Alan BrennertMoloka'i
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Stigmatization and the Body
Stigma, in its original meaning, refers to the bodily marking in ancient Greece that signified exile, and stigma operates in similar ways throughout Moloka’i. Those people with Hansen’s disease, mostly Hawaiians but also other immigrants, experience the effects of stigmatization, from the first appearance of painless blemishes through their journey to Moloka’i and into death. This stigma centers on the body, regardless of character or personality, and the appearance of tumors, rashes, and other effects of Hansen’s disease that marginalize the person who has it.
The shunning of people with Hansen’s disease remains a constant in the novel, long after the facts behind the disease’s communicative properties become clearer, and long after former Governor Judd apologizes for the decades of harsh treatment of those who suffered from the disease, even as he can’t imagine another way. As administrators consider closing Kalaupapa and moving the patients to O’ahu, these plans themselves are shunned—“Science was slowly recognizing that the disease which today was called leprosy was not the same as the Biblical scourge of that, but Biblical stigma was hard to overcome” (266).
Throughout the novel, this stigmatization centers on those who have Hansen’s disease, but the effects of this stigma, based on bodily signs, go beyond the exile to Moloka’i. Not only does this stigma remain permanent—based on physiological changes—but it is compounded by other stigmas centered on characteristics such as race and gender. After Leilani appears in Kalaupapa, her fate—suffering violence and coercion in the past—seems partly driven by her status and her identity as a māhū, a third-gender person in Polynesian culture. A previous lover, jealous or spurned in some way, takes revenge, she thinks, by reporting her symptoms. Attacked by a man in Kalaupapa, Leilani feels shame about her penis, which Haleola and Rachel both see, and Rachel understands that this part of her body, kept hidden, may have inspired Leilani’s attack: “But the man who’d assaulted her had been fooled, and he sure as hell cared” (171).
A similar dynamic unfolds between Crossen and Felicia, his much-abused girlfriend. Brady, Crossen’s only real friend, tells Kenji that Crossen blames his leprosy on a Chinese prostitute, and he attacks her viciously after he learns of his diagnosis. This pattern of abuse, made possible by the marginalization of both victims and victimizers, repeats itself once Crossen begins to date a fellow inhabitant of Moloka’i, Felicia. Rachel explains that his hate against his own case of Hansen’s disease causes his violence toward Felicia, representing a kind of inward stigmatization turned outward.
Crossen’s case, and his turn toward murder, encapsulate the true cost of stigmatization: Those who shun other parts of humanity do so to avoid turning hatred toward themselves. While the “healthy” inhabitants of Honolulu can only see the stigma of disease in Rachel’s hand or her years at Kalaupapa, their fear marks them, and they become the monsters they see in those who are shunned and marginalized.
Community and Belonging
Moloka’i depicts familial bonds in native Hawaiian culture as often more expansive than those of the foreigners who come to Hawaii, a fact borne out in many of the relationships described in the novel. These bonds seem to grow deeper on Moloka’i. The notions of community and belonging grow beyond the nuclear family, and even bonds of blood, to encompass friends who grow together like family. After Ruth visits Kalaupapa, she sees both the similarity and the uniqueness of the community on Moloka’i, forged by the hostility from outsiders and the common experiences of living with Hansen’s disease. As she meets Hokea and walks around the island, she sees “[i]t was a community like any other, bound by ties deeper than most, and people here went to their deaths as people did anywhere: with great reluctance, dragging the messy jumble of their lives behind them” (382). The “messy jumble” symbolizes both the detritus of their lives—possessions, papers, and mementos—and the network of friends, lovers, and acquaintances they leave behind.
Hansen’s disease seems to enrich these already-expansive bonds—connecting people “bound by ties deeper than most”—but this effect brings its own critiques. The preacher at Dorothy’s church, speaking of “leprosy” before Rachel is discovered to have Hansen’s and is sent to Moloka’i, links the depth of this community to the community spread of Hansen’s disease, suggesting that the disease “affects our people so disproportionately […] because we Hawaiians value family and community so much that we would rather shelter a leprous friend or relative than see him cast out of our midst” (34). The preacher’s words contrast with the depiction of “lepers” in the Gospels, who are shunned by everyone except Jesus. Paradoxically, the Hawaiian community seems to follow Jesus’s example, as they resist sending sick family members and friends away; but this very act of charity endangers the community as the disease quickly takes over the health of so many. The text often encourages the reader to ask, how does community survive if exile or death seem to be the only choices for survival?
Hansen’s disease seems to test those enlarged bonds and expansive notions of family. When Rachel approaches her aunt, Henry’s sister, in Honolulu, she asks Rachel to leave due to the stigma she brings. The bonds of family pale in comparison to the shame that comes from being shunned by the rest of the community. Dorothy also seems to flee the community to escape judgement about Rachel’s condition. But Rachel learns that Dorothy manages to honor her family bonds as she undertakes her self-imposed exile to hide Kimo and his symptoms, vowing never to “send another child to Moloka’i. Not like my baby Rachel” (346). Exiled at Moloka’i, Rachel and her fellows demonstrate the true nature of community, as they build relationships as reactions and defenses to an outside world that will not help them or touch them.
Colonialism, Conflict, and Christianity
Moloka’i presents Hawai’i as an island kingdom rich with traditions, legends, and lore. This richness, combined with its strategic location and natural beauty, lure foreigners and wealthy Americans. These colonizers defeat Hawai’i with military might and a form of Christianity that snuffs out native traditions, legendary history, and a view of the land as sacred and intertwined with Hawaiians and nature. This conversion—from an indigenous religion, with many gods, to a monotheistic faith that frames native practices as evil or silly—works together with a political conversion from monarchy to republic, where power transfers from the Hawaiian royal family to a group of rich Americans.
The novel depicts Christianity very often as a hierarchical faith, with commands from God rather than answers to difficult questions, and salvation and proselyting as modes of accumulation. Priests claim souls just as American businessmen claim land and resources. Rachel, with Haleola’s help, begins to see the faith of the past, even as Christianity obscures and erases it. Showing Rachel a shrine on the beach, Haleola tells Rachel, “[N]ot so long ago, people here prayed to lots of gods. There was a god of the sea; a god of the mountains; a god of mists, and rain, and wind” (89). Opposed to the colonists’ form of Christianity with its single-minded accumulation of souls and believers, Haleola describes a religion based on community and the sharing of work and responsibilities.
While the brothers and sisters on Moloka’i often embody this spirit of cooperation, their own struggles with answers and faith imply that Christianity’s spirit of superiority seems to fail those whom it claims to liberate. Haleola notices the shortcomings of Christianity, as she’s experienced the religion and its apostles. When she remembers her first husband, Keo, and his death, she recalls Father Damien’s last-ditch effort to collect his soul for Jehovah. Incensed, Haleola affirms that she “shall follow [her] Keo to hell” if God damns him for nonbelief rather than judges him on his character (71). Although Father Damien can’t answer her, he remains intent on saving souls and disrupting native rituals and ceremonies with violence, mirroring the politicians and businessmen who, in the spirit of altruism and “progress,” conquer Hawai’i.
Christianity has its advocates and better angels. Although Sister Catherine struggles with her faith, she remains kind to the Bishop Home girls, Rachel in particular, and makes space for Haleola, even after Pono’s death. Dorothy, Rachel comes to see, represents the clearest example of Christianity’s virtues, caring for her son Kimo and saving him from Moloka’i, bringing together the highest ideals of her Hawaiian background and her Christian character. Like Haleola, Dorothy finds strength living “in two worlds—the world my mother raised me to believe in, and the world around me,” and sees health to be a condition of the body and soul (180). Dorothy and Haleola offer a bridge from the past to the future, even as Christianity, like colonialism, topples a kingdom and takes traditions and souls, like precious resources or land.
